Generoso Pope

Generoso Pope (1 April 1891-28 April 1950) was an Italian-American businessman and newspaper publisher. Pope was a conservative Democrat who was supportive of Benito Mussolini and anti-communism, and he was also an ally of the Tammany Hall political machine. Pope Hall at Saint Peter's University in Jersey City is named for him.

Biography
Generoso Antonio Pompilio Carlo Papa was born in Arpaise, Campania, Italy in 1891, and he anglicized his surname to "Pope" after immigrating to America in 1906. In 1912, he founded an Italian food import company, and he bought the newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americano in 1928 for $2,050,000. He was a conservative Democrat who ran the Columbus Day parade and admired Benito Mussolini, and he was an enemy of anti-fascism among Italian-Americans. He was closely associated with the Tammany Hall political machine, secured the Italian vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt's tickets, made Columbus Day into a national holiday in 1934, founded the Columbus Day Parade in New York City, persuaded President Roosevelt to take a neutral stance over the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, and helped to secure Harry S. Truman as president. He was a leading anti-communist during the Cold War, orchestrating a letter writing campaign by his subscribers to help stop the Italian Communist Party from winning the 1948 elections. He died of a heart ailment in 1950 at the age of 59, and his son Generoso Pope Jr. would also become a media publisher.